Spatial Negotiations (2025), Sarvagya J. Nair
The Ordovician Period
David Keplinger
This land was once a vast sea. But I have found no tooth to prove it
In my house. Other beings sense me as I sense them, floating
Where my bedroom is: Chinese dragons and the shark of the Ordovician
Period, torpedo shaped, as slender as a pearl diver in teal water.
She is my soulmate. Our long marriage, four hundred million years.
Beside her, sleeping, I am the wine glass, her body the tubular bell.
David Keplinger is the author of nine collections of poetry, including Great Pond (Milkweed Editions, 2028), and he is the recipient of the 2025 Rome Prize for Literature, as well as the 2019 UNT Rilke Prize, and other honors. His work has appeared in Poetry, The New Yorker, Agni, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. He teaches at American University in Washington, DC.